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17 February 2019 News/Editorial

The total Tweed catch of 26 salmon for last week, the first time this year when conditions have been in the angler’s favour throughout, is nothing to write home about - but it is a start, and if the pictures of those caught is any indicator, those salmon which have made it home had no difficulty whatever in finding enough food to eat in the sea. They have been in magnificent condition.

The cumulative Tweed catch for the season to 16th February 2019 has now reached 33 salmon and no sea trout.

As for next week, there could be some water on Wednesday/Thursday, depending how far east a quite active weather front comes. It will be mild throughout, with stiff winds from the south west moderating as we get towards next weekend, as another high pressure system comes north from Europe.

After the driest January on record here, February is shaping up to being one of the warmest ever. It will all change when the wind goes to the east, but there is no sign whatever of that.

Yet.

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The other non-weather, extraordinary feature of this winter and early spring has been the lack of dead/dying “fungi” fish, resulting in a significant number of surviving kelts.

Quite why so many have survived, and the sight of diseased fish under the bank has been so rare, will doubtless remain a mystery.

The presence of so many kelts does two things, providing some company to persuade those fast moving springers to stop in the pools, and giving anglers some excitement as they seek out the more elusive, but much greater, prize.

And, of course, some of them will survive and come back into the river again sometime later this year, or next. All of which.. is good news.

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I am indebted to my kind correspondent from Tyne and Wear for sending an extract from the North Shields Gazette.

On 4th June 2018, one of the 11 (then) remaining drift netsmen was apprehended by fisheries enforcement officers of the Environment Agency because he and his crew were both (a) fishing with an illegally long net (724 metres when the maximum length permitted is 550 metres) and (b) operating in a prohibited conservation area.

They had 15 salmon and one sea trout on board. The licencee, after pleading guilty in court on 25th January 2019, was fined both £150 and a “victim surcharge”, making almost £3,000 in total, and his “excess” net was confiscated. History does not relate what became of the fish.

Generalisations are, of course, odious, but this sort of thing is hardly likely to add trust in the EA’s proposed process for T&J netsmen in 2019 whereby they will be entrusted to return any salmon which their miraculous new nets, which apparently mainly let salmon out but catch all sea trout, accidentally catch.

Please note :- The river level figures are not displayed in real time and are to be used as a guide. For more accurate information, please contact the owner of that stretch of the river, contact details can be found on the individual beat pages.